Intersectional Vulnerabilities Research Articles

Migrants facing intersectional vulnerability to HIV and AIDS in Switzerland: an exploratory study

An emerging body of evidence suggests that a significant number of HIV-positive migrants to Europe acquire HIV after arriving in their host country. There is an urgent need to rethink HIV and AIDS prevention for migrant populations and to acknowledge the specific vulnerability to HIV and AIDS that migrants face. This article uses empirical data collected in a qualitative sociological study conducted in Switzerland. We provide evidence for the heuristic value of articulating an intersectional approach within a multilevel (biographical, interactional and contextual) framework to capture the complexity of the vulnerability to HIV and AIDS. We show that migrants’ specific vulnerability to HIV and AIDS results from social vulnerabilities related to many social and cultural dimensions, including migration status, socioeconomic conditions, gender and sexual identity, sexual norms, the relational context in which sex occurs, power relations and sociocultural structures of the receiving country. The three case studies presented illustrate how HIV-related processes of intersectional vulnerability are embedded in sexism, cisgenderism, and racism, and how they are closely linked to social inequalities in health. Effective HIV and AIDS prevention for migrants must take greater account of these power relations and sociocultural structures.

The precarious lives of others: studying community, treatment, and precarity in Homebound

Abstract This paper explores themes of precarity, community, and treatment in the novel Homebound (2021) by Puja Changoiwala. The text foregrounds the experiences of migrant workers in India during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 as they walked home during a nationwide lockdown. The paper locates itself within discourses on health, differential treatment, and intersectional vulnerabilities which are compounded by factors including gender and poverty. It particularly highlights the concepts of precariousness and precarity as opening up multiple avenues for exploration of the migrants’ experience within the neoliberal political economy. The paper argues that it is the pre-existing precarities that are systemic, epistemic, and gendered, which aggravate the vulnerability of communities in a medical crisis. Furthermore, it looks at how social and medical treatment of the workers facilitates violence at the hands of those who perceive them as the ill-other – the police forces, the public, the healthcare workers, and the media. It also questions the logic that underlines spaces such as pandemic camps, which become sites of control more than care, and where medical treatment is inhered in socio-political biases and constructs. The paper argues that apprehending these experiences of socioeconomic and gendered precarities through literature can aid in developing a complex and sustained engagement with unequal socio-political systems that perpetuate violence and vulnerability.

Dignity and Human Rights Violations at the Workplace: Intersectional Vulnerability of Women Domestic Workers in India

Dignity and Human Rights Violations at the Workplace: Intersectional Vulnerability of Women Domestic Workers in India

A Critical Feminist Perspective on Climate Change Adaptation Plans: Mapping Municipal Recognition, Dialog, and Budgeting

Abstract Feminists’ scholarship and critique of gender climate injustice have exposed just how scarce the practical efforts to correct it are. The challenge of generating incentives designed to encourage urban planning that accounts for expected intersectional vulnerabilities during climate disasters reflects a gap in knowledge: how does professionals’ awareness of intensified vulnerabilities inform climate adaptation plans (CAPs)? We propose an intersectional critical feminist perspective evaluating recognition, dialog, and budgeting that decodes the social process by which professionals’ knowledge of intersectional vulnerabilities is lost before informing CAPs. Based on an empirical investigation of the increasing gender awareness among administrators who accumulate knowledge about women’s vulnerabilities, our analysis contributes an explanation of the marginalization of gender mainstreaming toolkits in urban CAPs. We show that even in municipalities characterized by increasing levels of recognition, relevant knowledge rarely informs the dialog, and planning appropriate responses for intersectional vulnerabilities is left unbudgeted.

The role of trauma-informed formulation in increasing compassionate and person-centred care within youth forensic services

Team formulation can provide opportunities for integrating interprofessional perspectives, leading to a rich consensus of how to support someone. Such an approach can be particularly important when working in complex environments, where it is essential that a range of professional perspectives inform a trans-professional approach to care. Youth Forensic Services are one such setting, supporting young people who face intersectional vulnerabilities and have often experienced multi-type traumas. A trauma-informed approach to team formulation facilitates a compassionate perspective to inform decision-making and care planning, encapsulating an understanding of how a young person’s past experiences of trauma may be influencing how they interact with their environment and in relationships in the here-and-now. Additionally, some therapeutic modalities may feature more dominantly within trauma-informed formulation, which may reinforce a greater theoretical basis to the formulation process, offering further opportunities for tailored, evidence-based, person-centred care.

Migration, Vulnerability, and Experiences of Insecurity: Conceptualising Insecure Migration Status

This research examines the insecurities that are embedded within immigration status or lack thereof. I argue that, to improve our understanding of the relationship between immigration-related insecurity and violence, we need to reconceptualise how we think about, measure, and analyse immigration-based characteristics. This research proposes building an analytical category that can conceptualise insecure migration status to include forms of immigration status that internalise insecurity in addition to being without status, or with an irregular status. These insecurities often incorporate gendered dynamics. Grouping these different categories around a commonly shared experience of insecurity allows us to prioritise experiences of insecurity that are persistent even as people move, cross borders, and change status. I propose that this will permit a more comprehensive picture of migration-related harms that exist across states, status types, and borders while allowing researchers and data gatherers to be attentive to intersectional vulnerabilities that enhance insecurity for particular categories, subgroups, and populations.

Cartographies in the Wilderness: A Decolonial Theological Reflection on Intersectionality

“Cartographies in the Wilderness” is a decolonial theological reflection on intersectionality. With a specific attention to how decolonial theory rethinks the spatial dimensions of the modern/colonial world, I offer an alternative framework for thinking about the “whereness” of intersectionality and the bodies and souls it hopes to redeem from interlocking oppressions. The work is specifically aimed at undoing an overdependency on reifying and defending intersectional vulnerabilities as the sole method of delinking from the logics that naturalize exclusivist forms of human difference. Through a decolonial reading of Delores Williams’s “wilderness experience,” I argue that theology can engage critical theory (read here as intersectionality) fruitfully without falling victim to the so called “divisiveness” that is often associated with the historical narratives that emerge from the critiques of race, class, gender, sex, and sexuality. From a decolonial theological perspective, I conclude that an adequate decolonization of the geopolitics that situate knowledge and knowledge production is key for the future of cooperation between theological reflection, intersectionality, and critical theory at large.

Intersectional disparities in climate vulnerability and cancer risk.

Despite significant progress in the early detection, treatment, and survivorship of cancer in recent decades, cancer disparities continue to plague segments of the US population. Many of these cancer disparities, especially those among historically marginalized racial and ethnic groups and those with lower socioeconomic resources, are caused and perpetuated by social and structural barriers to health. These social and structural barriers, which operate beyond the framework of cancer control, also systematically increase vulnerability to and decrease adaptive capacity for the deleterious effects of anthropogenic climate change. The established and emerging overlap between climate vulnerability and cancer risk presents complex challenges to cancer control, specifically among populations who suffer compounding hazards and intersectional vulnerabilities. By embracing these intersections, we may be able to conceptualize promising new research frameworks and programmatic opportunities that decrease vulnerability to a wide range of climate and health threats to advance health equity.

Mental health of vulnerable groups experiencing a drought or bushfire: A systematic review.

Natural hazards are increasing because of climate change, and they disproportionately affect vulnerable populations. Prior reviews of the mental health consequences of natural hazard events have not focused on the particular experiences of vulnerable groups. Based on the expected increase in fires and droughts in the coming years, the aim of this systematic review is to synthesize the global evidence about the mental health of vulnerable populations after experiencing natural hazards. We searched databases such as Ovid MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL and Ovid PsycInfo using a systematic strategy, which yielded 3,401 publications. We identified 18 eligible studies conducted in five different countries with 15,959 participants. The most common vulnerabilities were living in a rural area, occupying a low socioeconomic position, being a member of an ethnic minority and having a medical condition. Common experiences reported by vulnerable individuals affected by drought included worry, hopelessness, isolation and suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Those affected by fire reported experiencing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and anger. These mental health problems exacerbated existing health and socioeconomic challenges. The evidence base about mental health in vulnerable communities affected by natural hazards can be improved by including standardized measures and comparison groups, examining the role of intersectional vulnerabilities, and disaggregating data routinely to allow for analyses of the particular experiences of vulnerable communities. Such efforts will help ensure that programs are informed by an understanding of the unique needs of these communities.

A Gender-Based and Quasi-Experimental Study of the Catastrophic and Impoverishing Health-Care Expenditures in Mexican Households with Elderly Members, 2000-2020

ABSTRACT Latin America has experienced a rise in noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) which is having repercussions on the structuring of healthcare delivery and social protection for vulnerable populations. We examined catastrophic (CHE) and excessive (EHE, impoverishing and/or catastrophic) health care expenditures in Mexican households with and without elderly members (≥65 years), by gender of head of the households, during 2000–2020. We analyzed pooled cross-sectional data for 380,509 households from eleven rounds of the National Household Income and Expenditure Survey. Male- and female-headed households (MHHs and FHHs) were matched using propensity scores to control for gender bias in systematic differences regarding care-seeking (demand for healthcare) preferences. Adjusted probabilities of positive health expenditures, CHE and EHE were estimated using probit and two-stage probit models, respectively. Quintiles of EHE by state among FHHs with elderly members were also mapped. CHE and EHE were greater among FHHs than among MHHs (4.7% vs 3.9% and 5.5% vs 4.6%), and greater in FHHs with elderly members (5.8% vs 4.9% and 6.9% vs 5.8%). EHE in FHHs with elderly members varied geographically from 3.9% to 9.1%, being greater in less developed eastern, north-central and southeastern states. Compared with MHHs, FHHs face greater risks of CHE and EHE. This vulnerability is exacerbated in FHHs with elderly members, because of gender intersectional vulnerability. The present context, marked by a growing burden of NCDs and inequities amplified by COVID-19, makes key interlinkages across multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) apparent, and calls for urgent measures that strengthen social protection in health.

Intersectional Vulnerabilities and the Banality of Harm

Abstract In this article we examine how intersectional vulnerabilities are experienced and made sense of by women of color activists in Europe. We name intersectional vulnerabilities as a broad, sometimes contradictory, set of emotions, all tied to activists’ complex experiences of insecurity and community. Intersectional vulnerabilities are those risks and rewards, derived from women of color activists’ positioning in relation to race, class, gender, sexuality, disability, and legal status, which shape the possibilities of women of color’s activist labor. These vulnerabilities are Janus-faced, in that they are experienced as social harms that oftentimes lead to community. Our article grapples with the bittersweetness of vulnerability and how the banality of harms meted out to women of color nevertheless contains the seeds of resistance, solidarity, and self-love.

Intersectional Identities and Land Dispossession

Land grabbing has long been present in Southeast Asia, but with the spike in commodity prices in 2008, land grabbing intensified. The procedure is highly problematic as it often occurs at the expense of peasant farmers, land stewardship, food sovereignty, and human rights. So far, the literature has paid insufficient attention to the vulnerability of indigenous women and their intersectional vulnerability of gender and ethnicity when facing land dispossession. Such neglect poses far-reaching analytical limitations and questionable political implications. It is essential to bridge the gap between land-grabbing studies and the gendered implications of land dispossession on indigenous women to generate more nuanced analyses of the issue. Through a qualitative in-depth comparative analysis of the general implications of land dispossession on indigenous women in Southeast Asia and two case studies of the Cordillera Administrative Region in the Philippines and Kalimantan in Indonesia, the paper tries to answer how does the gendered politics of land dispossession affect indigenous women? It finds that indigenous women have higher physical and economic vulnerabilities due to land dispossession than non-indigenous women. These vulnerabilities are further heightened due to the lack of representation in decision-making. However, how these vulnerabilities play out highly depends on national and local factors.

Reconsidering the Conceptualization of Resilience: The Experiences of Refugee and Immigrant Youth in Montreal.

Over the last two decades, immigrant and refugee integration service agencies in Canada have been incorporating a focus on resiliency in their work and hold "fostering resilience" as a primary goal of services. These agencies focus on helping their clients enhance resilience in response to their integration challenges. Refugee and immigrant youth (RIY) face intersectional vulnerabilities during their resettlement process. These challenges make the concept of resilience vital to their success. However, resettlement service providers associate RIY's resilience with their assimilation into the Western culture such as integrating into the dominant culture. This definition is insensitive to cultural and social factors that contextualize RIY's definition of resilience. Drawing from in-depth interviews of Refugees and Immigrant youths in Montreal, and using Resilience as a conceptual framework, the research study investigated the barriers to the integration of RIY and their conceptualization of resilience. The study found social isolation, cultural differences between the host and home communities, racism, hostility, aggression, and language to be barriers to RIY's integration. The youth conceptualized resilience as a form of adaptability to any situation; as the ability to integrate into a new society while remaining deeply rooted in one's culture and past experiences; and overcoming marginalization. The paper contributes to a nuanced critical understanding in the field of refugee and migration studies and further throws light on a growing triangular interrelationship between social and economic integration of refugees, cultural factors of host communities, and resilience.

Solidarity and strife after the Atlanta spa shootings: A mixed methods study characterizing Twitter discussions by qualitative analysis and machine learning.

On March 16, 2021, a white man shot and killed eight victims, six of whom were Asian women at Atlanta-area spa and massage parlors. The aims of the study were to: (1) qualitatively summarize themes of tweets related to race, ethnicity, and racism immediately following the Atlanta spa shootings, and (2) examine temporal trends in expressions hate speech and solidarity before and after the Atlanta spa shootings using a new methodology for hate speech analysis. A random 1% sample of publicly available tweets was collected from January to April 2021. The analytic sample included 708,933 tweets using race-related keywords. This sample was analyzed for hate speech using a newly developed method for combining faceted item response theory with deep learning to measure a continuum of hate speech, from solidarity race-related speech to use of violent, racist language. A qualitative content analysis was conducted on random samples of 1,000 tweets referencing Asians before the Atlanta spa shootings from January to March 15, 2021 and 2,000 tweets referencing Asians after the shooting from March 17 to 28 to capture the immediate reactions and discussions following the shootings. Qualitative themes that emerged included solidarity (4% before the shootings vs. 17% after), condemnation of the shootings (9% after), racism (10% before vs. 18% after), role of racist language during the pandemic (2 vs. 6%), intersectional vulnerabilities (4 vs. 6%), relationship between Asian and Black struggles against racism (5 vs. 7%), and discussions not related (74 vs. 37%). The quantitative hate speech model showed a decrease in the proportion of tweets referencing Asians that expressed racism (from 1.4% 7 days prior to the event from to 1.0% in the 3 days after). The percent of tweets referencing Asians that expressed solidarity speech increased by 20% (from 22.7 to 27.2% during the same time period) (p < 0.001) and returned to its earlier rate within about 2 weeks. Our analysis highlights some complexities of discrimination and the importance of nuanced evaluation of online speech. Findings suggest the importance of tracking hate and solidarity speech. By understanding the conversations emerging from social media, we may learn about possible ways to produce solidarity promoting messages and dampen hate messages.

Intersectional vulnerability in the relationship between discrimination and inflammatory gene expression

Addressing social disparities in health and well-being requires understanding how the effects of discrimination become biologically embedded, and how embedding processes might vary across different demographic contexts. Emerging research suggests that a threat-related gene expression response may contribute to social disparities in health. We tested a contextual vulnerability model of discrimination embedding using an empirical intersectionality (interaction discovery) analysis of pro-inflammatory gene expression in a national sample of non-institutionalized, English-speaking adults with RNA biomarker data (n = 543). At the time of data collection, the average age of participants was 55 years (SD = 13.26) and approximately half identified as female (50.46%). Most participants identified as White (∼73%) and had some college experience (∼60%). Results showed significant variation in the strength of association between daily discrimination and inflammatory gene expression by race and sex (b = −0.022; 95% CI:-0.038,-0.005, p = .009) with the estimated marginal association larger for racially-minoritized males (b = 0.007; 95% CI:-0.003,0.017, p = .163), compared to White males (b = −0.006; 95% CI:-0.013,0.001, p = .076). This study indicates that the link between daily discrimination and inflammatory gene expression may vary by sociodemographic characteristics. To improve initiatives and policies aimed at ameliorating disparities within populations, greater attention is needed to understand how interlocking systems of inequalities contribute to physiological health.

Keagenan Perempuan pada Krisis Iklim

This article aims to discuss the relationship between the promotion of women’s agency and vulnerable groups with the changing trends in the orientation of social research methods towards decolonization in the strands of the feminist approach. All the world communities, especially the marginal groups who have intersectional vulnerabilities, are starting to redefine their experiences in this climate crisis. It is proven that their concrete resilience is genuine, innovative, creative, and able to preserve their lives in a sustainable manner. Our attention should be deeper towards their simple efforts to free themselves from the “oppression of global powers”. This research was conducted in two villages of the Exclusive Economic Zone (KEE) Banyuwangi, East Java, called Wringinputih and Kedunggebang. The framework used is postcolonial feminist and applies a feminist political ecology (FPE) method. Fieldwork adopts focus group discussion, field talk, and participatory observation. The doubts of marginal communities about their agency in the climate crisis is a challenge for postcolonial feminist researchers. In fact, by using a feminist postcolonial approach, the practices of forest landscape governance (FLG) clearly record the involvement of women and marginalized groups. Here it is the novelty of the article, a decolonization method in FLG

Covid-19 lockdowns and the precarity of South Asian key workers’ families in the United Kingdom

ABSTRACT With growing concern in the lives of individuals and communities during COVID-19, there is growing consensus across the globe that the pandemic had a disproportionate impact on different segments of society. It is of pertinent significance to understand the differential impact of pandemic on diverse groups. The concept of ‘intersectional vulnerability’ has been used in this paper to understand the unequal impact of the pandemic. Using an intersectional lens of ethnicity, this paper aims to understand the lived experiences of South Asian key workers’ family members (women) during the COVID-19 lockdowns through narratives of precarity and vulnerability, this study brings out the challenges faced by families of key workers. Vulnerable family members’ fear, stress, economic pressures, persistent inequalities in society, and gendered experiences shape the narratives of these families. The pandemic exacerbated existing precarious positions of families by creating a situation where ethnic inequality and inequitable gendered impacts were further reinforced.

Impact of Social and Personal Factors on Psychological Distress in the Spanish Population in the COVID-19 Crisis

Abstract The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) crisis has had an unprecedented impact on Spanish society regarding health and social issues. The purpose of this study is to analyse the potential relationship that may exist between social and personal factors and the levels of psychological distress experienced by the Spanish population during lockdown. A quantitative cross-sectional study was conducted using an ad hoc online questionnaire consisting of forty-three questions. The survey was administered to a sample of 3,436 people that were living in Spain during the second extension of the State of Alarm. A linear mixed model with random intersection has been used. Our findings demonstrate the intersectional vulnerability of young women and the impact different factors such as a COVID-19 diagnosis, experiencing symptoms compatible with COVID, an existing disability, a previous illness or solitary confinement may have on psychological distress levels. Conversely, higher resilience levels have shown a correlation with lower psychological distress levels.

Gendered precarious employment in China's gig economy: exploring women gig drivers’ intersectional vulnerabilities and resistances

ABSTRACT The article offers a timely study of the gendered experience of gig work in China and prioritises the nexus of an intersectional feminist approach to explore women workers’ situated problematics and precarious employment in ride-hailing platforms. Drawing on ‘chatnography’, conducted over a period of 17 months and semi-structured interviews with 30 women platform drivers, this article makes two important contributions to the robust scholarship of gender and precarious work in the gig economy. First, this research argues that gendered precarious work relations are still prevalent in China's on-demand economy, especially in male-dominated ride-hailing platforms. The patriarchal gender norms and oppressive work relations perpetuate gender inequality and women's oppression. On the one hand, women platform drivers experience gender discrimination from passengers, netizens and followers, male platform drivers, and algorithms. On the other hand, women platform drivers are subject to risks and women's health problems. Second, this study highlights women platform workers’ intersectional vulnerabilities and their resistance to precarious employment and argues that working-class, migrant, and single mothers are in the most perilous situation. This article proposes that platform co-operatives are an alternative organisation of the gig economy, which creates gender-egalitarian, democratic working conditions for platform workers, especially marginalised women workers, and calls for support, actions, and funding for platform co-operativism from international and local agencies, grassroots organisations, governments, universities, co-operatives, and active consumers.

Intersectional vulnerabilities and differential impacts of COVID-19 responses on young people who sell sex in Zimbabwe

The varying impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on different populations has brought into focus the pre-existing inequalities which shape vulnerabilities amongst marginalised and key populations. More nuanced approaches which understand intersectional vulnerabilities and differential impacts of the pandemic on gender and sexuality diversity within these groups are required. We investigated the economic, social and health impacts of COVID-19 on young people of diverse genders and sexualities who sell sex (16-24 years) in Zimbabwe. We found that all groups had heightened vulnerability to economic and social hardship during the first two COVID waves in Zimbabwe. However, vulnerability was unequally distributed by geography and socio-economic position, as well as by gender and age, both within and between groups of participants. With limited funding resources for the promotion of sexual and reproductive health and rights in the push for universal health coverage, nuanced approaches which include analysis of multidimensional vulnerabilities between and within groups is required to develop the most cost effective and impactful policy and programme interventions.